


acolyte

by quantumducky



Series: real!elias time baybee [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Compulsion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, and... what i would almost call one-sided elias/the concept of the archivist, background canon typical jonmartin, fun weird dynamics! jon did not ask for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21673435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky/pseuds/quantumducky
Summary: Jon and Martin return to the Institute to confront Jonah Magnus and find a regular, no-longer-possessed Elias Bouchard instead. He's... not entirely what they might have expected.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard & Jonathan Sims
Series: real!elias time baybee [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562422
Comments: 14
Kudos: 167





	acolyte

**Author's Note:**

> i'm getting increasingly attached to this version of elias help

Jonah Magnus has somehow made himself a blind spot in Jon’s knowledge, and so it’s not until he and Martin have fought their way back to the Institute and forced his office door open that he realizes they’re too late to confront him. The body he used to inhabit is sitting on the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, face streaked with tears, staring wide-eyed at nothing. There’s a very delayed reaction to the opening of the door: turning slowly to face them, but not quite appearing to understand the sight. Martin starts forward as soon as he catches the movement, his face twisting in rage, but Jon puts a hand out to stop him.

“Magnus isn’t… in there, anymore,” he explains quietly. The shell of a man on the floor shudders and keeps staring at them- not unblinking, or anything of that nature, but no less unsettling for the mundanity.

“Oh,” Martin breathes, and nods. “Should- I don’t… what do we do about  _ him, _ then?”

Jon bites his lip and then gives Martin’s hand a brief squeeze, coming to a decision. “I’ll… try to talk to him. Keep watch at the door for me, please?” There’s not really much danger of anything coming after them  _ here, _ in the Eye’s own home base, but- well. Martin hates Jonah Magnus as much as anyone, and  _ he’s _ not the one who got the Knowledge dropped into his head that this man isn’t him. Jon thinks it will be best if he keeps some distance for the moment.

He nods in agreement- there’s a flicker in Jon’s mind that he might be thinking the same thing, but he pushes it away before it can fully form in the interest of being as non-creepy as he can possibly manage anymore- and Jon approaches slowly and kneels down on the floor. The full attention of that distant gaze is on him, now.

“Elias Bouchard?” Elias blinks at him, a spark of recognition in his eyes at hearing his own name, but doesn’t respond. Jon sighs and threads just a bit of compulsion into his second attempt, telling himself he can decide how guilty to feel about it later. “Can you hear me, Elias?”

Elias sways toward the sound of his voice like a flower seeking sun, the vague look on his face giving way to a somewhat clearer focus. “Yes,” he breathes. “Archivist. I… I know you, I remember.”

Jon can’t help a wince, and Elias catches it, of course, and looks faintly worried that he’s answered wrong. “That’s- that’s good,” Jon assures him quickly. “…How much  _ do _ you remember?”

He shivers, leans forward again to the point of unbalancing, and he doesn’t seem to remember how to use his own arms at the moment so Jon is forced to catch him and ease him back upright.  _ “Everything.” _ He pauses before elaborating, his gaze never leaving Jon’s face as he thinks. “Not… Jonah’s memories…” More tears well up, and he blinks them away, but otherwise gives no sign of even noticing. “But I… I remember what we did. All of it. I… it’s harder to remember now… but I do.”

Christ. Jon can  _ very _ much imagine how traumatic that must be. “I’m sorry,” he says sincerely. “I Know how difficult this is for you.” And he does- couldn’t quite clamp down on that one, or didn’t try hard enough. Elias’s thoughts right now are a jumble of  _ no _ and  _ why _ and a horribly lost, unmoored feeling. And in the midst of all that, a sunburst of hope that Jon will be able to help- again, he understands, what a relief it must be seeing his first familiar, non-hostile face in the aftermath of watching Jonah use his body to bring about the apocalypse.

“Thank you, Archivist.”

He does a better job keeping the discomfort out of his expression this time. Elias probably picked that up from having Jonah in his head so long, he can’t help it if he also sounds exactly like him. Still, before saying anything else, Jon turns around to check on Martin and compose himself.

When he turns back, Elias looks- scared. Enough that Jon quickly checks behind himself  _ again, _ just in case he somehow missed some kind of danger.

“Archivist,” he whispers. “Are you- will-” He breaks off, swallows. Can’t seem to finish the sentence and looks at Jon hopefully, who Knows what he wants him to do.

“What do you want to say to me?” He chooses his words carefully, mentally crossing out  _ what’s wrong _ and  _ what do you want _ for being too vague, likely to compel more than he actually wants to tell.

Elias lets out a soft sigh of relief and leans into him again, like he’s not even aware of the action. This time, Jon catches him by the shoulders and resigns himself to propping him up, because he’s clearly not in a state to sustain it on his own.

His response to the question is immediate: “I don’t want to be-  _ abandoned _ again.” He melts against the support, insomuch as he was ever holding himself up to begin with. “Jonah is gone and I can’t reach Beholding anymore, I can’t  _ See, _ but now you’re here and I can almost- please, Archivist, don’t take it away again,” and he breaks down in earnest, shaking and still trying to hold eye contact through his tears. Jon adjusts his grip and traps him against his chest, where he can’t look up at him, and tells himself it’s his best attempt at comfort. Elias cries all the harder into his shoulder.

It’s too much of a commotion for Martin to keep ignoring just because he’s on the other side of the room. Jon hears him turn and start to walk over to them, and then he hears him swear quietly. When he looks up at him, Martin is staring… not quite  _ at _ Elias, not… directly. Jon doesn’t know what he sees, but his face provides a decent hint.

“Not good, I take it.”

Martin blinks slowly and pulls his gaze back to Jon, shaking his head. “If you leave him here…” It’s clear enough he doesn’t love the idea of taking him  _ with _ them, but he doesn’t voice it. “Well. I don’t think he’d’ve lasted  _ this _ long if he wasn’t… you know.” He gestures around them, to the Institute as a whole and this office in particular.

Elias finds the energy to pull his head up at that, glancing up at Martin before appearing to dismiss him and fixing his attention back on Jon, where he seems convinced it belongs. He’s gathered himself enough to get words out again, if only just. “It can’t have me,” he says pleadingly. Of course he knows what they’re alluding to. “Archivist- don’t let it take me from you.”

Jon’s grip on him tightens reflexively, at that. He’s lost enough people- even if he doesn’t exactly want to call Elias one of  _ his, _ he knows some deep-down part has already claimed him as, if nothing else, Jon’s responsibility. At least  _ one _ person he can actually help, after everything he’s done. And the man looks so painfully desperate to not be left behind. He shoots Martin a questioning look and, in return, gets a reluctant nod.

“If I take you with me,” he says, and tries not to falter at the hopeful widening of Elias’s eyes. “Can we trust you? You won’t have some… other agenda to betray us for later?”

He looks almost hurt, but it’s overridden by the discomfiting pleasure he clearly takes in being compelled. Another thing picked up from Jonah, or was that partially his influence all along? “Of course- I’m yours, my only loyalty is to the Eye, you have to believe me.”

_ Yours. _ Jon doesn’t want to like that, much less enjoy hearing himself and his patron conflated as one. Maybe it’s the Archivist within him that quietly sings the rightness of it. Jon shoves the feeling down with a sharp exhale.

“Good,” he manages, once he gets past being disgusted with his own thoughts and remembers to respond. “I- I suppose there’s no harm in it, then, at least until you’re… doing well enough to make your own way.” Unless  _ “making him very uncomfortable” _ counts as harm. Still, the alternative isn’t something he’d wish on anyone, except possibly Jonah Magnus, wherever the hell he is now. “As long as you don’t cause any trouble, you can come with us.”

All the tension of waiting for that answer leaves Elias in a single breath, and Jon finds himself supporting his entire weight again. He looks so much more his age, suddenly, and it’s obvious how much this ordeal has exhausted him- he’s almost fragile, in a way Jonah would never have allowed this body to show. He exhales his thanks like a prayer, and doesn’t seem to mind so much this time when Jon insistently guides him to rest his head against his shoulder.

Once he’s calmed, Jon takes his attention off him and looks up to Martin again. The mess of uncertainty in his head must show through on his face. Martin comes up beside him- careful to avoid Elias- and kisses his brow in a half-successful attempt to soothe it away.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says, in that tone he uses when he doesn’t quite believe what he’s saying himself, but  _ really _ hopes everyone else will.

Jon just nods, too tired to voice his doubts at the moment- he’s pretty sure they’re thinking the same things, anyway. “Right. We will.” And unconsciously, without realizing it- he’d surely stop himself if he did- he cards his fingers in a soothing motion through Elias’s hair.


End file.
